Macbeth essay - Grade: 9 PDF

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Anul I literatura (Nicolaescu), Engleza A
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Macbeth Written in 1606, Macbeth has been presented at the Globe Theatre in the same year; it has been thus created for performance in daylight, but in 1608 Shakespeare’s company, the King’s men, moved to the Blackfriars Theatre, which was a dark space into which artificial light had to be introduced. Illusion Macbeth contains a contradiction of the natural conditions: the conversion of daylight into darkness sets illusion in a centre position within the play. Darkness in daylight is provided symbolically by torches and candles. The series of dark scenes is launched in I.5 by Lady Macbeth’s invocation to the power of darkness. The Weird Sisters are another element of illusion in the play; they are visible to the audience, to Macbeth and Banquo, but their ambiguity arises from their nature: are they supernatural or mere village witches? Confusion derives also from the fact that the Folio text refers to them as “witches”. The term “weird” referred in those times to “Destiny or Fate”, and foreknowledge is the Sisters’ main attribution. The dagger is a different matter : the Weird Sisters are attested by sight , but are indefinite in form; the dagger has a specific form, but is not actually seen by anyone- even Macbeth knows it is not there. Optical illusion is typical for feverish conditions. Macbeth draws his actual dagger, but still sees the illusory one as still more eloquent, with ‘gouts of blood’- which is how the actual one will be in the next scene. Banquo’s ghost is a another feature of dramatic illusion; he is seen by the audience and by Macbeth, but by no one else on the stage. Lady Macbeth’s sleep-walking in 5.I is fundamentally about delusion, but caused by psychological disturbance. From here on the mysterious is being progressively dissipated and is finally eliminated in the Birnam Wood scene, where illusion is being completely reduced to rational explanation. So is the revelation of Macduff’s birth. Language Spectacular linguistic effect is most highly achieved in Macbeth’s soliloquy at the opening of I.7 . The tongue-twisting suggests mental conflict: If th’ assassination Could trammel up the consequence and catch With his surcease, success,

“Assassination” and “consequence” stand as euphemisms for murder and guilt. This even-handed justice Commends th’ingredience of our poisoned chalice

Ingredience and chalice have strong ecclesiastical associations from which justice and religion come forth. Besides, this Duncan Hath borne his faculties so meek, hath been So clear in his great office, that his virtues Will plead like angels, trumpet-tongued against The deep damnation of his taking-off; And pity, like a naked new-born babe, Striding the blast, or Heaven’s cherubim, horsed Upon the sightless couriers of the air Shall blow the horrid deed in every eye That tears shall drown the wind

The fundamental sense of ‘plead’ here is the juridical one, but associated with angels it acquires the sense of ‘beg’. The angels themselves appear first as a simple cliché metaphor, but immediately become concrete, blowing trumpets, and transpose through the babe into Heaven’s cherubim. The main image-trains are sight and sound. The sound is a crescendo from ‘plead’ to ‘blast’. Sight is also achieved as a crescendo, becoming increasingly specific from the vague ‘angels’ into the insistently detailed ‘naked new-born babe’. The question whether Lady Macbeth ever had a child has been much discussed. When she states I have given suck, and know How tender’tis to love the babe that milks me....

Macbeth does not ask “When did you ever give suck?”; so she did. But it remains unclear whether she really means it or if it’s true. Macbeth and his wife’s languages joined 3.2, but their comprehensions are opposite; she urges overcoming fear, ‘Things without all remedy| Should be without regard- what’s done, is done’ , while he alludes to further action: O, full of scorpions is my mind, dear wifeThou know’st that Banquo and his Fleance lives

As he advances in callousness, she retreats in fear; the roles settled between them earlier in the play are reversed; this is the final breakdown of their communication. In 3.2 their relationship completely changes and they are never intimate again; now he is the one to display determination and cruelty which were once hers alone, but which she can no longer undergo.

Baroque drama Macbeths are presented to us in two different ways; to others, they are first a loyal general and his gracious lady and at last, bloody slaughterer and hateful queen.

The supernatural is also perceived ambivalently: there encouragement towards credulity but also an disposition towards scepticism, which hints at the possibility of rational interpretation of supernatural phenomena. Text and sources There is only one early text of Macbeth, in the First Folio published in 1623. Although it is a good text, it has two main problems: the lines are not correctly divided, and the sequence of the scenes include several confusions. As for his other historical plays, Shakespeare used Holinshed’s Chronicles of England and Scotland. Banquo,who had no historical existence, was believed to have been killed by Macbeth (who had historical existence), but his son Fleance fled to Wales where seduced a princess; their son Walter later fled back to Scotland, where his military success won him the post of Royal Steward. Walter was the historical founder of the family. Another source of inspiration for Shakespeare’s Macbeth are Seneca’s Medea and Agamemnon, especially in creating the character of Lady Macbeth. In both plays, powerful women, Medea and Clytemnestra, take revenge on their husbands and in both children are involved, but Lady Macbeth is less successfully destructive than them. The Porter’s performance is based on the miracle plays of the fourteenth century. The Porter is one of the diabolic trinity led by Lucifer, as in Marlowe’s Dr. Faustus. The Porter’s ignorance of ‘th’ other devil’s name’ originates from the anonymity usual for the attendant devils in the miracle plays; it can also be connected with the popular fear of naming the devil....